We've been hearing about kids dying in Africa and in war torn countries for decades, we're numb to it. It's like watching a murder on a tv show, we just blink through it now. But when it happens in our own back yard in such a quiet little place at such a tragic time, it's different.

You're right. And our numbness is important. It helps perpetuate the status quo. Even what happens in our own backyard can be ignored. I already ignore the drug violence in my city quite easily. Every now and then something so heinous occurs that is jolts us out of our stupour. Maybe people will react differently to this crime--to change things--but I remain skeptical.

Bryan Fischer, on his Christian radio show, as well as Mike Huckabee on "Fox News," said that the reason the children were killed was that prayer is not allowed in schools - that God wreaked his vengeance by allowing these children to die. Could this BE a stronger indictment of religion? For that matter, could it be stronger indictment of the callousness of Fischer and Huckabee?

Statements such as those made by Huckabee (and many others) are callous in the extreme. To believe what he apparently believes does indeed make the shooter the "scourge of god". In Huckabee's view, this should elevate the shooter to sainthood.

Indeed! This is just one more piece of evidence that there is no such thing as an omnipotent, omniscient, OMNIBENEVOLENT God. Let's hear it, Christians. Explain again how YOUR GOD let this grotesque horror happen. Was He just impotent to prevent it? Or was He, like the Old Testament Yahweh, uncaring?

I think they forget that Yawheh actually likes killing children. He had no problem doing it just to piss off Pharaoh and he sent the flood which wiped out a whole bunch of innocent children. I'm sure we could find other examples.